


Sunshine

by LilahFrost



Series: Stardust/Sunshine (Big Time Hunger) [2]
Category: Big Time Rush, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilahFrost/pseuds/LilahFrost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sun shouldn't be allowed to shine on the worst day of James' life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stardust](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/7859) by Garnetice. 



The sun shouldn’t shine on days like this, when fathers lose sons and daughters are ripped from their mother’s arms. When brave young boys are stripped to their core, sent off to a war that can’t be won.

Still, James is woken by blinding light that creeps through busted blinds, and try as he might to bury himself under covers and will himself back to sleep and ignorance, he’s awake, and sleep won’t come again for days.

He half expects his stomach to surge with pain once more, the rollicking cramps that radiated through his body the night before, like the foaming waves he’s known his whole life.

Those same cramps kept him from the reaping, kept him from taking Kendall’s hand and running as they called his name.

 

He likes to think Kendall would have run with him, to the boundaries of Four or to the ocean itself. But Kendall is brave in ways that James is not, and if the glint in Kendall’s eye as he took to the podium is any indication, that piece of paper that read his name was a challenge, a red flag to a bull.

Kendall is not one to back down.

 

 

James has never liked to watch the games. He’s a Career now, trained to fight, kill and destroy in all manner of ways. He knows that Kendall is too, that Kendall is good at what he does, that Kendall can survive.

 

“Toughen up,” James’ father says when James shies away from the gruesome images on the television. Like many in the District, it’s all a sport to Mr. Diamond, he watches intently, beer and chips by his side. His triumphant cheers and anguished shouts are louder than the cannons that echo through the District’s sound systems, the cannons that send chills down James’ spine and leave him feeling hollow and strange.

 

Kendall’s not a fan of televised mass murder either,

“It’s fucked up,” he shrugs, carefree as ever, but James’ notices him pause when they hear cannons in the distance, the way his body stiffens for just a moment, before he dives back into work. Not even Kendall is immune to that deathly chime, the symbol of loss and power and the crimson blood of the innocent.

 

James had asked Kendall once, in the safety of the shipyard, what would happen if their names were called.  What would happen if one of them were left alone.

Kendall had looked at him for just a moment, and then, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world,

“We’d win.”

James had believed him then, in the way that James always believed Kendall, and as he crawls from his bed and into the first day without his best friend by his side, he still does. He simply has to.

 

 

In the sweltering living room his mother is watching the feed, and, as is always the way the day after the reaping, the faces of twelve doomed children fill the screen. His mother is silent, clutching her tea like a precious gem, her knuckles white with tension. Familiar green eyes appear on the screen, and Kendall smiles his crooked smile into the camera,  James looks away, and hears his mother whimper, a fear-filled, wounded sound.

James is not Kendall, he is not insurmountably brave. He runs out into the street like quickfire, the sounds of his mother’s cries at his back. He runs like there’s no tomorrow, desperate to escape the hyper-color nightmare that is today.

 

The sun shines bright in a cloudless sky, and everything is bathed in too much light. Cracks in weatherboard and rusted tin roofs stand out under the glare, and the road is already hot beneath James’ feet. It’s wrong, this glorious, blessed warmth. This day should be grey with clouds, the roads drenched from pouring rain and hail like golf balls. Thunder should boom and lightning should crack and the world should be drowning, falling apart, then maybe it would feel appropriate. Maybe then it would match the churning, aching war that’s being waged in James’ body. Heart, soul or stomach he’s not sure, he feels it everywhere.

 

James’ feet slap on the stony path, and he reaches the rocks in moments, and throws himself beneath the surface of the water, fully clothed.

There should be waves, but all is still. The world is technicolor and joy, when all James feels is thunderstorms. He thrashes through the water like a shark caught in a net, his legs kicking out and colliding with rocks and coral, the swirl of blood a trail behind him, his head pounding with pressure.

 

James comes to the surface in gasps and bursts before diving back below, screaming into the wide blue nothingness, desperately hoping to be swallowed whole.

In endless blue he sees Kendall everywhere.

James remembers holding his breath until he almost passed out and diving down until his vision began to blur. He remembers fishing trips and skipping school on sunny days, and races back home with Camille on their tails, her shrieks and their laughter mingling with the sounds of the busy marketplace.

Below the water, there is silence, and James hears only Kendall’s voice, calling James’ name.

 

 

He collapses on white sands, drawing shallow, pained breaths.

His body is made of sting and ache, as salt and sand mixes with fresh cuts and scrapes, and bruises begin to bloom on his arms.

 

Behind his eyelids Kendall dances, ducking and weaving amidst children armed with swords and knives. James tries to reach him, to arm him with something more than fear and hope and love, but Kendall is out of reach, his body nothing but wind and sunlight, flickering and untouchable.  Water laps at James’ toes and he lies still, letting the sun soak into his weathered skin.

 

He’s alone, in a way he’s never been before.

 

He thinks of nights by the water, just the two of them, boys but men, brave and stupid and fearless in strange and complicated ways.

He thinks of the nights of near silence, Kendall staring out to sea without a word, James by his side as always.

Under the brilliant blue sky James sits up, sand sticking to his damp skin.

He looks into the sea and sees nothing but still water and the shadows of his best friend.

Everything inside of him is storms and wind and rain.

The sun still shines.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
